NEWLY-crowned world champion Rodel Mayol returned to the place where he grew up, Sitio Calpayan, Barangay Tubod in San Fernando, to receive an Outstanding Achievement Award last Wednesday for becoming the latest champion of the country.
Mayol received the award from Mayor Lakambini Reluya.
He grew up in Calapayan, Tubod with his grandparents, Godofredo and Maximina Generalao ,and spent the first 13 years of life in the small remote village before transferring to Mandaue City.
It was in Mandaue City that he started his amateur boxing career under boxing patron Antonio L. Aldeguer of the ALA gym.
“I will never forget this place wherever I go,” said Mayol, who regularly visits his relatives in his hometown.
Before being honored with the award by San Fernando, Mayol, along with his wife Lira and his two children, started his visit with a motorcade around the municipality and was received warmly by locals.
When he arrived in Calapayan, which was about 10 kilometers away from the town proper, a crowd of residents immediately swarmed the 28-year-old Mayol, eager to congratulate him for becoming a world champion.
“We hope that Rodel will be an inspiration for the youth,” said Mayor Reluya.
Mayol won the World Boxing Council light flyweight crown after stopping dangerous Mexican titleholder Edgar Sosa in the second round of their bout in Mexico last month.
It was Mayol’s fifth world title attempt and his third this year.
San Fernando has already started an amateur boxing program for the young boxing hopefuls and Reluya is optimistic that the municipality will be able to produce another world champion like Mayol.
“We are hoping that San Fernando will have other champions and not only Rodel Mayol,” said Reluya.
With this boxing program set up by Reluya, Mayol is confident that someday there will be a boxer from the small mountain village of Calapayan who will follow in his footsteps and become a future world champion like him.
“I know that I’m not the only one from Calapayan, Tubod who will be a world champion. Maybe someday some of these kids will become a world champion like me,” said Mayol, pointing to the children who were in the premises of the awarding.
Mayol will also be given another award by the municipality of San Fernando in May next year.
He will be given the “Garbo sa San Fernando Award,” the highest award of the town.
